Observation: Why do bums…sorry, why do gentlemen of character and consequence who are temporarily homeless always seem to sleep right in front of posh uptown establishments where there’s always a lot of heavy light and foot traffic? If I was a bum I’d sleep in a nice dark park under a bench or a tree. Anecdote: There was a slight incident that followed the taking of the Charles de Gaulle Etoile metro shot. A 30ish Middle-Eastern guy with a gray check flannel shirt (you can only see his right arm) wanted to know if I’d captured his face in the photo. Was he alarmed in roughly the same way that Anthony Quinn‘s Auda Abu Tayi became alarmed when Arthur Kennedy took his picture in Lawrence of Arabia? I never asked but I quickly proved he wasn’t in the shot by showing him the evidence on my iPhone screen. Then he and his friend wanted to talk — “Where you from? You American?” — and they kept up the chatter as the Nation train arrived, asking me about Los Angeles and blah-blah with one of them saying he liked my shoes and my jacket. A split second after the friend admiringly caressed my left jacket sleeve I flinched and snapped “the fuck away from me!” I only knew they were getting too close too quickly. The guy recoiled and told me to go fuck off…fine. An innocent misunderstanding? Possibly but nobody caresses my sleeve in a metro station.

Homeless guy on the rue de Rivoli earlier this evening.

The right sleeve of the too-friendly Middle-Eastern guy can be seen on the left.

SNCF train ticket to Cannes. Leaving at 7:19 am on Tuesday morning from Gare de Lyon.